Terminal Reality's excellent-looking Ghostbusters game was due out this Christmas, but now it's not hitting the shops until June 2009. Why the extra dev time? To add "more creepy elements", says the game's creative director
Speaking to CVG in London, Terminal Reality's Drew Haworth said that the move to Atari has allowed it to improve the game's spooks, pacing and cut-scenes. The focus has been "primarily on player experience," he said.
"We added some more creepy elements, a couple of more puzzle elements... we feel that the combat is in a very solid spot," Haworth commented. "[the move to Atari] allowed us to go back and tweak and see 'oh, this experience would be enhanced here by adding more scares, more cooldown areas...' - pacing basically. We also upgraded some of the in-game cinematics."
Ghostbusters: The Game was one of the most unfortunate victims of Activision's merger with original publisher Vivendi, which left the game floating in limbo, until Atari came to TR's rescue.
"It wasn't frustrating as much as our course has changed now," Haworth said of the switch. "We were certainly happy to get a new publisher. After Vivendi decided not to publish the game we were surprised more than anything else. It also allows us an extension to polish and improve the quality of the game".
I remember seeing a preview of this months ago, the Devs at the time were trying to compare it against Gears, saying that it would be going up against Gears this Xmas.
The game looked brilliant back then so an extra 3-8 months of development time can only be a good thing.
The only problem that I can see is whether the shooting mechanic stays fun throughout the game. Trapping ghosts could get old quickly, so I am hoping that the developers have taken this into consideration and made the core of the game an addictive pastime.
The major problem I can see and that can prevent this game being a massive hit is poor production values or sad "dole-ites" that need to get a job & join the "REAL" world and post from AM to PM!!
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